[ChicagoDave]

What we "want" and what businesses will demand are very different things. I can tell you from 40 years build software, all companies care about is functional software. They don't care about code quality, maintainability, or tech debt. Never seen a single CTO say, "Let's carve out 20% of our sprints for tech debt," even though as architects we recommend something like that all the time.

The motto has always been, "Make it work."

Not, "Make it perfect."

[jaynate]

I think we are both saying similar things here (believe it or not). Sales leaders turnover with surprising frequency - 18-24 months. About the time the sales team tells you what they “want” and you fine tune it, they will be gone. The next person will come in and probably scrap 50-75% of what the prior leader did. New requirements.

Meanwhile, besides functionality, you’ll want/need to plug in the latest and greatest go to market tools for marketing -and demand gen. But… that’ll be a custom effort, too.

Along the way you’ll also realize that you’re missing out on the most common practices in the industry because you built some idiosyncratic tool that only is relevant to your company.

History may very well prove me wrong, but I think you’re underestimating the expertise that underlies these products and platforms. It’s not just code, and the costs of getting it wrong are more than just an engineer’s time. When you waste time in GTM the impacts on the business and valuation are not linear, they’re exponential.